


Forsake

by perihadion



Series: Shadowboxing [7]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Emotional Baggage, F/M, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Relationship Issues, you can't break up with me we're not dating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:20:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22326238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perihadion/pseuds/perihadion
Summary: Cara comes to a difficult decision regarding her relationship with Din and makes him, herself, and everyone around them miserable.
Relationships: Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune & Greef Karga, Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Series: Shadowboxing [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1599208
Comments: 33
Kudos: 155





	Forsake

**Author's Note:**

> I know this is rough but it's not the end.
> 
> Do not comment with Omera hate.

_we could still support each other_  
_all we gotta do’s avoid each other_  
_nothing wrong when a song ends in a minor key_

— “Werewolf”, Fiona Apple

*

Cara slammed Ven face-down on the table. “Now, listen up,” she said. “I’ve warned you before about taking non-Guild jobs on the side. You do well in the Guild, we give you more work. That’s the deal.” Ven, who was bleeding profusely, groaned in response. “Now, that’s not an option available to you any more,” she continued, “because you thought you could undercut our business model and we wouldn’t find out.” She twisted his arm and he cried out; she knew she was close to popping his shoulder out of his socket but there was so much fire and rage inside her she almost didn’t care. “So you’re not in the Guild any more. And, it’s your lucky day! Because I’m not gonna kill you. But if I hear about you taking on any kind of bounty work from now on? I might not be so generous. So I’m gonna leave all your fingers and thumbs intact, because you’re probably gonna need them in your new line of work — whatever it is.”

She released him, and he lay panting on the counter. “Good luck,” she said, and dusted her hands as she turned towards the office. Greef was standing in the doorway, glowering at her. He kept his eyes on her as she walked towards him and, when she tried to brush past, grabbed her arm.

“What are you doing?” he hissed at her.

“My job,” she replied, shaking him off.

He pointed at Ven, who was trying to pick himself up off the counter with little success, “I would appreciate it,” he said, “if you would leave one or two of my hunters capable of doing _theirs_. Take it down a notch or twelve, we’re a semi-legitimate business here not a spice-running operation.”

She rolled her eyes, and pushed past him into the office, grabbed a bottle of liquor, and sat down at the desk, kicking her heels up onto it. Greef was still standing in the doorway watching her with his hands on his hips. She stared at him as she opened the bottle and poured herself a drink, daring him to say something.

He took her up on that bet. “What the hell is going on with you lately?” he asked. “You’ve been off since you got back from your little jaunt off-world.”

She put her feet down and leant forward. “I am not _off_ ,” she said. “I’m just sick of these jokers taking liberties.”

He crossed his arms but seemed not to have anything to say in response to that. After a moment he softened a little, and then said, “Okay, fine. Just do me a favour?” She made a noncommittal gesture. “Give the next one three strikes before you turn him into a mess on the floor for my bar staff to clean up.” He turned and left. Cara swallowed her drink in one, and then got up and slammed the door behind him.

The hard truth was that Greef was right and Cara knew it. She was off. She had been off for a lot longer than he realised, and she was in a foul mood about it. It was easier to feel anger than fear, easier to feel anger than almost anything else — so anger was more or less all she felt lately. Anger at herself, anger at Din, anger at the whole situation.

She spent the rest of the day in the office and Greef left her alone for the most part. When she retired to her room that night she splashed cold water on her face and eyed herself in the mirror. At least she didn’t look like a mess on the outside.

*

It was a few days later that Din walked into the bar with the kid toddling behind him. Cara was in the office at the time, but she heard Greef cry out, “Mando! To what do we owe this pleasure?”

She sighed and pressed her fingers to her eyelids. She waited a few minutes for them to discuss whatever business they had — probably Din had run low on credits and was looking for work — and then breezed out, avoiding Din’s gaze until she reached their table. The Child, who was seated next to him, made a burbling noise and reached out to her. She looked down at him and stroked an ear, whispering, “Hey, kid,” and then she looked at Din at last and said, “I need to talk to you.” He tilted his head and she added, “Not here.”

“Watch the kid?” Din asked Greef, who gave them both a strange look and shrugged.

He turned to the Child, “We’ll have fun won’t we, champ?” The Child looked unconvinced. As Cara and Din left, Greef added, “Hey Cara?” She looked over her shoulder at him. “I don’t know what this is about but can you try to leave our top earner with his kneecaps intact?“

She waved him off. “You got it, boss.“

*

Din leant up against the wall, arms crossed, watching Cara as she paced a little back and forth. She half-expected him to make a comment about how on edge she seemed, but he kept his thoughts to himself. “We need to talk,” she said, at last.

“You said,” was the response.

Cara knew that what she was about to say was ridiculous, but it was the only way she knew to get to the conversation they needed to have. “Here is the thing,” she said. “I can’t be a wife.”

He tilted his head in confusion, “I’m not asking you to be a wife.”

She nodded, “Yeah, no, I know. But what I mean is —” She felt sick at what she was about to say, and what it revealed about her and her feelings. The thought of giving him that kind of understanding of her, to do with as he pleased, of showing him exactly where and how to hurt her, was almost unbearable. But it was necessary, so that he would understand. She took a deep breath. “What I mean is that, for you to show me your face — without giving up your creed — I would have to be your wife. Right?”

He seemed to understand what she was getting at, pushing off the wall and crossing over her bed to sit on it. “Yes,” he said, at last. His voice was almost emotionless but she thought she detected some faint shade of — sadness? Longing?

“So, what are we doing here?” she asked.

He looked up at her. “What do you mean, what are we doing?”

“You know what I mean,” she said. “It was cool when we were just fucking but things have changed. It’s soft.”

“Soft?”

“Yeah,” she said, “soft. And I can’t — it’s gonna end badly.” She took a deep breath. “You know, all this ‘I just wanted to see you’ stuff, and romantic head butts, and ‘keep your eyes closed so I can kiss you’. It’s soft. I can’t do soft, not with you. Not when I know the only way it’s gonna end is badly, because I can tell you right now that it’s not gonna end in marriage.” He said nothing for a long time and, against her better judgement, Cara sat next to him on the bed. His hand was right there, she could just reach out and take it. But she wouldn’t, not this time.

She heard him sigh, and then he said, “I don’t know what the solution is.”

“You know what I mean, don’t you?” she said, desperate to hear that it wasn’t just her. That he felt it too. That he knew what the problem was.

“Yes, I know what you mean,” he said, and this time she heard the sadness settling over his voice. “But I don’t see a way out. All I know is that, right now — I seem to need you.”

She pressed her eyes shut. Why did he have to make this so difficult? ”You don’t need me,” she said. For some reason she couldn’t bring herself to look at him; she felt sometimes like she could see through the helmet to his heart, and she didn’t want to see it break. “It just feels that way. But you got along fine before I came along.” He put his hand over hers and she couldn’t bring herself to pull it away.

“It’s nobody’s fault,” she said. “We just –” She took a deep breath. Her head was pounding. ”It was a mistake. We let it go too far.”

He took his hand away, and stood up, crossing to the window and looking out over Nevarro. “What are you suggesting?”

She stood up too, and put her hands on her hips. He, of all people, had to recognise that she was being reasonable. “We take it down a notch — or twelve,” she said, echoing Greef’s words to her. “Back to basics. No more sleeping together, no more, you know, _soft_ stuff.” No more getting drunk and crying in his arms, that’s for damn sure. “No more coming to see each other just because. Keep it professional, you know.”

He said nothing; he didn’t even move for a long time.

“I mean,” she said, “we’ll get over it. Isn’t that what you said? ‘We all do’. Those were your words, Din.”

“Yes,” he said, and he sounded a little like he was drowning. After a moment he turned to face her, and she felt struck down by how cold his attitude was. This was it then. “Are we done here?” he asked. She took a long look at him, realising all of a sudden that it might be the last one for a long time, and then nodded.

If he felt anything for her at all now, it was only betrayed by the force with which he closed the door behind him.

*

“What did you say to Mando to tick him off so much?” Greef asked when she returned to the bar. She made eye contact with him and shook her head, then headed into the office and locked the door behind her. Then she slid down onto the floor, unable to stop the tears any more. It was better, she knew it was better to just end it all now before they inevitably imploded like a collapsing star, but it fucking hurt.

If she were a different person — if things were different — maybe they could have made a go of it, maybe she could have opened herself to him. But the only way she knew to look after him now was to stay the fuck away from him. So she would lock herself in the office and cry until her head felt like it might break apart, and then she would begin the laborious process of closing herself off again, and one day this would be just one more half-forgotten scar.

**Author's Note:**

> I had this conversation in my head and I couldn't get past it; it felt like I've written this relationship into a point where they _have_ to talk about it, but also like that conversation would have to end this way. But, like I said, it's not the end.
> 
> Come say hi on [twitter](http://twitter.com/theoceanblooms) or [tumblr](http://spectroscopes.tumblr.com)! If you really liked this fic, it would be lovely if you could [reblog](https://www.tumblr.com/reblog/190354803699/NjVoCwDw) on tumblr.


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